Super Supper

I love it when meals are surprisingly good and/or make you say out loud, "Mm, that hit the spot!" Since we were gone at church retreat last weekend, and I knew I'd be working late yesterday, I got all my groceries for two weeks the previous weekend. (I usually only buy for one week at a time.) What ended up happening: I wrote down the recipes, but not where they're from, I've used ingredients for other things as I've gotten hungry, and I wasn't sure what was actually in the fridge. So, tonight's meal was definitely going to be a bit of a surprise ending. Additional point of consideration: Ben wanted supper before he left for a meeting, so I was hurrying through my somewhat improvised chopping to get it ready in time.

The original "entry" on my menu was for Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto Pasta and Chipotle Veggies. I intended to use the pesto (from here) that my dear mama purchased for me at the farmer's market when she was here recently, which I did (though I did have a momentary heart attack while the pasta was draining when I realized I hadn't seen it in the fridge in days and thought I had used it.)  I have no idea what the tomatoes in the fridge were originally for, but they got thrown in the pasta for added texture. The parmesan cheese that I was planning on using is now "in absentia," so mozzarella got used instead.

For the veggies, I realized that 1) I had no recipe for it, 2) no idea which veggies I planned on using, and 3) the only available veggies were carrots, potatoes, lettuce, cilantro, and tomatoes. So, after a bit of mucking around allrecipes.com, I managed to locate an interesting-looking grill marinade that I adapted a bit to work for my situation.

Added bonus: I had been wanting salad all week and forgot I had lettuce, so that got chopped up along with some of the tomatoes and two random hard-boiled eggs left in the fridge. The dressing I used was ranch and chipotle salsa. End result? I really enjoyed everything. Ben didn't eat because he was working on homework :-) More for lunch tomorrow!

Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto Pasta


1 lb. whole grain pasta
4 oz. sun-dried tomato pesto
2-3 Roma tomatoes, diced
mozzarella cheese

Boil pasta and drain. Return pasta to pan and add pesto. Mix with pasta until evenly coated. Toss pasta with tomatoes. Serve with mozzarella cheese sprinkled on each serving. Serves: 4-6.

Roasted Chipotle Veggies
8-9 medium carrots, peeled
5-6 medium potatoes, peeled

Marinade: 
1/3 c. oil
1/4 c. apple cider vinegar
3 T. cilantro, chopped
1 chipotle pepper in adobo sauce, chopped
1 t. salt
1 t. paprika
1 t. cumin

Preheat oven to 425. Whisk marinade ingredients in the bottom of a large bowl. Chop vegetables in 1/2 inch chunks and mix with marinade. Spread veggies on baking sheet(s) and roast for 25 minutes, stirring half-way through baking time.
Serves: 4

Mexican Salad
1 bunch lettuce, chopped
2 Roma tomatoes, chopped
2 hard-boiled eggs, chopped
1 c. black beans, cooked
1 c. corn, cooked

Dressing:
1 c. ranch salad dressing
1-2 T. salsa

Combine dressing ingredients and chill until ready to serve. Toss remaining ingredients in a salad bowl and serve with dressing on the side.

[Photos from church retreat. The comic was made using my iPod Touch and the Halftone app, which I LOVE!.]

Aaaand...we're up and running!

It's been a busy month, with school starting and getting everything organized. Ask any teacher how the first 2-4 weeks of school is, and inevitably you'll get some sort of answer along the lines of:

Whew!

Busy!

Running around like a chicken with my head cut off!

I still have TONS to do and I've been at school every night till 6!

I'm not so sure about this class...

I forgot how much work this is!

Collecting forms bites!

If only I'd stop getting new students!

Etc

Etc

Etc

I'm finally starting to get everything how I want it (though I still have emergency sub plans to write) so now I have a bit of time to consider the food that I'm actually putting on the table. Tonight for supper group, given that I had a bunch of quinoa around (thank you Costco!), I made this chicken with quinoa and vegetable dish from allrecipes.com, along with mom's italian vegetable salad, bread and jam, and these fantastic banana chocolate chip cookies from Taste of Home. They're almost cake-like :-) Definitely a fantastic use for bananas that are on the verge. There was definitely some double-fisting going on by the kids :-) 

Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies 

1/3 c. butter, softened

1/2 c. sugar

1 egg

1/2 c. banana, mashed

1/2 t. vanilla

1 c. flour

1 t. baking powder

1/4 t. salt

1/8 t. baking soda

1 c. chocolate chips

Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add egg, banana, and vanilla. Whisk flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda in separate bowl. Slowly add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients. Fold in chocolate chips. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto greased baking sheet, leaving 1-2 inches between each. Bake at 350 for 9-11 minutes, until edges have browned. 

Yield: 3 dozen (though for the size I was making them, it was more like 2 dozen) 

Summer Grilling Goodness

It's August, which means we're midway through the dead of summer, with about a month to go. This also means that at this point, we're getting tired of salad and watermelon. Ok, I take it back, I can never get tired of watermelon, but we're definitely in need of some variety in the diet. Hence, when I ran across this quinoa salad from Canadian Living magazine on a blog, I thought it sounded like an excellent change of pace (along with some egg salad). However, since I was not paying attention when I grocery shopped, I had to make do with what I had (no big surprise). So, my version is a tiny bit modified (as described below). 

Grilled Vegetable Quinoa Salad with Chipotle Vinaigrette 

Salad: 

1 c. quinoa, uncooked

2 bell peppers, quartered

1 zucchini (green or Mexican), cut in 1/2 in. thick strips, lengthwise

4 medium carrots, peeled and sliced in diagonal 1 in. chunks

1/2 c. goat cheese, crumbled

3 T. cilantro, chopped

Chipotle Vinaigrette

3 T. olive oil

2 T. red wine vinegar

1 canned chipotle pepper in adobo sauce, minced

2 t. honey

1/2 t. cumin

1/4 t. salt

1/4 t. pepper

1. Boil quinoa in 2 c. salted water for 12 minutes. Remove from heat, fluff with fork and let sit for 15 minutes. 

2. Meanwhile, whisk together vinaigrette ingredients and set aside. 

3. In large bowl, toss peppers, zucchini, carrots and 3 T. vinaigrette together until coated. Place on greased grill over medium heat, and grill until charred and tender (between 8-115 minutes, depending on the size of the vegetable chunk). Cut into large chunks and return to bowl. 

4. Add remaining dressing, quinoa, cheese, and cilantro. Stir to combine. Serve immediately. 

Serves 6.

Back to School with Ice Cream!

Every year, as people reluctantly trickle back into Phoenix in July and August (having spent as much of the summer as possible out of the heat), my church holds its annual Back-to-School Ice Cream Social. This event holds two purposes: 1-it raises money for a scholarship fund to help kids attend church schools, and 2-it functions as a blessing on the year, by praying for students of all ages, teachers, support staff, and parents. As I was preparing the ice cream I planned to bring, a friend said that she would have just bought some gourmet ice cream. I said, "No, you don't understand. Everyone who volunteers to bring ice cream is volunteering to bring an ice cream freezer of homemade ice cream." So, the event also ends up being a bit of an ice-cream potluck.

This year was a battle for me to get the ice cream done, since we had been camping all weekend. (Technically, we were yurt-ing :-) We stayed in a large, round, structured tent in northeastern AZ. Good times :-) See pictures.) We got home from camping at about 4:45, and I needed to leave the house at 5:45 with a finished freezer of ice cream AND shower. Yikes.

I picked a strawberry ice cream recipe, because I'm pregnant and that's what I'm in the mood for. And strawberries were on sale for 77 cents per container. :-) I was a little worried about the ice cream given that I had never made it before and it had no eggs (raw or cooked) in it. Every ice cream I've ever made has some amount of eggs in it. But, the reviews on the recipe sounded good, so I gave it a shot. After an ultra-fast shower, I chopped bunches of strawberries and mixed up the batter.

Going against some people's recommendations, I multiplied the recipe times 1.5, hoping it wouldn't overflow my 5 quart ice cream maker, which I'd never had happen. I felt pretty safe given the fact that this recipe seemed to make a lot less, and in reality, only filled up my ice cream maker about 2/3 full. (My normal recipe ends with "Then fill up the rest of the ice cream maker with milk to the top rim." Expansion has never been a problem.) I put the ice cream in to churn at 5:20, and at 5:43, the motor finally stopped. (Trying to "freeze" ice cream outside while its 105 degrees is a fairly humorous battle. I was outside adding ice at least every 5 minutes. And salt. Lots of salt.) The ice cream definitely did eventually expand enough to fill the entire container, but it only overflowed a tiny bit.

When I got there, my strawberry ice cream and I were standing among the likes of such flavors as Wendy's Frosty flavor, Very Peanut Butter, Blueberry, Coconut, and Mango Habanero (and 3 different versions of vanilla). As I dipped out my untasted ice cream for people when they walked through the line, people kept coming back and commenting on how creamy it was, that they loved the texture, and the generally yummy flavor. When I finally got a chance to enjoy some, it turned out they were right :-) I got the original recipe from Allrecipes, but modified it just a bit. Below is the 1.5x recipe along with my adaptations. (And a potluck success: I went home with an empty container!)

Summer Strawberry Ice Cream

2 c. cream
4 c. half and half
1 1/2 c. white sugar
1/3 t. salt
1 T. vanilla
3 c. mashed strawberries (to desired consistency)

 1. Combine all ingredients and mix with hand mixer or whisk. Pour into 5 quart ice cream maker bowl and freeze according to manufacturer's instructions.

(Top picture: our yurt, in Lyman Lake State Park, near St. John's, AZ. In Steve's words, "all the good parts of camping, and none of the bad parts," i.e. setting up tents.)
(Middle picture: Darla & Steve Schrock and Laura Glass-Hess as we go on a self-guided petroglyphs tour at the campground.)
(Bottom picture: Darla has mastered the Jet-ski --probably due to the compressing features of the wetsuit--and celebrates accordingly.)

Not Too Much

This is the final post in my series summarizing Michael Pollan's quick-read, Food Rules, in which he emphasizes basic ideas for healthy eating, without totally restricting your diet to one thing or the other. The first post I wrote reviewed this book, as well as one of it's pre-cursors, Omnivore's Dilemma. Following that, I wrote one post for each of Pollan's three main rules in Food Rules. The first rule is Eat Food, as in real food, not "food products" composed of unpronounceable synthetic chemicals and dyes. The second rule, Mostly Plants, emphasizes eating mostly plant-based food (and not just things based on corn and high-fructose corn syrup). The third rule, and subject of this post is Not Too Much. In other words, whatever you're eating, eat within reason, not unthinkingly.  These are some of the specific rules that stuck with me:

44-Pay more, eat less. 
     In his explanation of this one, he also listed this old maxim: Better to pay the grocer than the doctor. This one got me, because I am definitely the one who doesn't buy organic entirely because of the cost. Based on the small portion of our budget that is food, it really wouldn't hurt me to spend a tiny bit more on more natural, local foods. When it comes down to it, I would MUCH rather pay more for food than for doctor bills.

46-Stop eating before you're full. 
     This rule, and several following ones, emphasize the importance of being aware of the food you put in your mouth. How often do we eat unthinkingly, out of a bag, only to realize after you dump a handful of popcorn down the front of your shirt that you haven't even been looking at the food? (Ok, maybe that's just me. My hand-eye coordination is atrocious.) My favorite thing he said about this rule was the words for saying, "I'm hungry" and "I'm full" in French. Before a meal, the literal translation of the French phrases is, "I have hunger." More strikingly after a meal, in France the phrase is, "I have no more hunger." The implication of this is that you do not have to be full to not be hungry anymore. I think this is a critical difference that explains a lot of the obesity problem here. Just that one little thing could help us be much more aware of the actual impact of food on our feelings of being sated.

49-Eat slowly. 
     Or another more practical way Pollan puts this is, Put down your fork in between bites. Even before the days of 25 minute lunches as a teacher, I have always been the one that is waiting for everyone else to finish their meal. I routinely look up (often for the first time) with three bites left, and realize everyone else is maybe half done. Hence, this rule hits home for me. Another way I've heard of explaining the same thing is to swallow each bite before you take the next one. As silly as these things sound, they serve two purposes: 1) You actually enjoy each bite of your food. 2) Since it takes 20 minutes for the message that you are full (or not hungry) to go from your stomach to your brain, the slower you eat, the more time your brain has to get the message that you should stop eating, thereby avoiding being stuffed.

58-Do all your eating at a table. 
     When you eat at a table, you're eating feels contained to the table, and tends to feel like the eating has a beginning and ending. On the other hand, if you don't eat at the table (for meals or snacks), you're far more prone to be doing something else at the same time, like watching TV, which means you're eating unthinkingly, and often, unendingly. Also, in terms of snacks, many times it seems silly to get a portion of a given snack and sit down at the table and eat it. However, if we did this, I suspect we'd be much more likely to eat less, because once you get up from the table, there is a much stronger feeling of the eating being finished. My husband is a good example of this, since he often sits down at the table with chips and a dish of salsa after work, and when the salsa is gone, he's done eating until supper. I, on the other hand, tend to snack while I do other things all afternoon (all in the name of multi-tasking of course), and I probably end up eating more in the process.

59-Try not to eat alone. 
     This is a fantastic rule on all sides. Obviously there are many situations where you can't avoid eating alone, but there are also many times when there is someone in the house to eat with, but you choose not to. One of the many points of eating with someone is that you spend time talking, and not just wolfing down your food, without thinking. Talking slows you down, which again, gives your brain more time to get the signal that your not hungry anymore. On top of that, it's just more enjoyable eating with someone else. :-)

60-Treat treats as treats. 
     Enough said.

63-Cook. 
     Again, this guarantees that you're eating real food, and it is significantly more likely to be much healthier.

And finally, 64-Break the rules, once in a while. 
     Like I said previously, one of my favorite things about this book is the way that Pollan rarely says Never. By emphasizing making good lifestyle choices on a regular basis, there is room in your diet to occasionally break the rules.

So, all these posts to say, Eat well on a regular basis. (And then break the rules every once in a while :-)

Mostly Plants

Last week, I was struck by the wonderful simplicity of the book Food Rules by Michael Pollan, and decided to share some of the best ideas with you. The main premise of this slim, 140-page book, is that if we can follow 3 basic rules in our food consumption, we'll be much healthier. In my last post, I wrote about the first rule, Eat Food, which emphasizes the need to avoid processed food products (for instance, things like Velveeta, which is a "processed cheese product" according to the package).

The next rule which is based on the first, and subject of this post is eat Mostly Plants. This basically speaks for itself. The more food we eat that comes from plants, which of course equals fruit, vegetables, etc, the less processed food we are eating. Notice that he doesn't say all plants, which some people do advocate. (The raw food movement would fall into this camp.) Another reason I like Pollan's work, is that he doesn't say Never. He doesn't say never eat junk food, he says keep things within reason (which is the main idea of his 3rd rule, which I'll write about in the next post.)

These are the rules that stuck with me the most from this section of the book:

34-Sweeten and salt your food yourself. 
      Again, he doesn't say, never salt your food. The main idea behind this rule is that when you buy processed or pre-prepared foods (TV dinners, canned chili, flavored yogurt, restaurant food, etc.), they often come heavily sugared or salted. Ironically, many so-called health foods do this. It's not uncommon for companies to make something, "fat-free," but then pump it up with sugar or salt so that it still has some flavor. So, the implication is that when you prepare your own food, even if you do add a heavy dose of sugar or salt, you at least know exactly how much is going into it. The added benefit of this is that you're likely to use less, because you'll be more aware of the amount. If you had to personally add the sugar into a can of soda, you would probably be less likely to use as much, especially if someone else was watching you! :-) Here's a great video/site explaining the amount of sugar in a can of soda--10 teaspoons!)

36-Don't eat breakfast cereals that change the color of the milk. 
     Many of the rules in this book were things I'd already known of, but it was good to have them repeated in a concise form. This one, however, I had never thought of. Totally true. Pink, yellow, or green milk is just not natural. (Literally.)

39-Eat all the junk food, you want as long as you cook it yourself. 
     I love this rule, because again, it doesn't forbid you from eating junk food. What it does do is emphasize the impact of fast food in our lives. Let's face it, there's a reason people don't eat french fries at home. They're a pain in the butt to make! If I had to make them every single time I wanted them, I'd definitely eat them a lot less. Same thing applies to baked goods, chips, etc.

So, to recap: Eat food, mostly plants.

I know you'll be waiting with great anticipation for the breath-taking conclusion of this series! :-)

Eat Food

As described in the previous post, I recently read Michael Pollan's book Food Rules, which is a description of 64 basic rules for how we can adjust our eating habits to make sure we're eating well. The short book is divided into three major sections, the first of which is Eat Food, meaning eat real food, not processed food products. One of his major points throughout the book is that our diet has not always been disastrous as a nation, but in the last 30 years or so, it has really fallen apart. To this end, he makes a point of examining old wives' tales and sayings from the past that have been proven to have actual scientific merit and truly are beneficial to our diets. Hence, some of the rules reflect previous eras. Here are some of my favorites from the first section of the book:
[Note: These are all general rules, with clear exceptions.]

2-Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food.
     A la "Go-Gurt." or "Tofutti."

6-Avoid food products that contain more than five ingredients.
     By following this rule, you avoid a lot of preservatives like high-fructose corn syrup, added salt and artificial flavoring, and "nutrients" that are artificially pumped into food. (Again, be reasonable. One of my favorite Christmas cookies has three ingredients: butter, flour, and brown sugar.)

8-Avoid products that make health claims. 
     I particularly like this one, because Pollan points out that things that make health claims have 1) packages, and hence are farther away from real food 2) come from companies that have money to package and advertise, 3) come from companies that have money to engineer their foods to meet FDA guidelines, (like fat-free mayonnaise).

10-Avoid foods that are pretending to be something they're not.
     Like dairy-free cream cheese. This is an oxymoron. Or again, like fat-free mayonnaise or olive oil mayonnaise. There is no such thing. Real mayonnaise is made with eggs, oil and vinegar. Period. These are the ingredients in olive oil mayonnaise:

Water, Olive Oil, Soybean Oil, Vinegar, Modified Food Starch, Sugar, Maltodextrin, Eggs, Contains less than 2% of Salt, Mustard Flour, Dried Onions, Dried Garlic, Natural Flavor, Enzyme Modified Egg Yolk, Beta Carotene* (Color), Lactic Acid*, Potassium Sorbate* and Calcium Disodium Edta As Preservatives, Phosphoric Acid

13-Eat foods that will eventually rot. 

     Anything that will not rot in the coming days or weeks, is unlikely to be real food, based on the amount of sweeteners, shelf stabilizers and preservatives it apparently contains (i.e., Twinkies.) 

16-Buy your snacks at the farmer's market. 

    In this case, you're much more likely to be eating real food, without preservatives, etc. Not only that, there's a much better chance the food is healthy in the first place, like dried fruit, etc. Given my pregnant state, I plan on heading down to the farmer's market soon, since I'll need something to get me through the mornings at school. 

20-It's not food if it arrived through the window of your car. 

     I think this speaks for itself. :-)

Now, just as a point of reference, Pollan makes it very clear throughout the book that he isn't advocating NEVER eating french fries, Cheetos, etc., but just making the rules part of your general habits. (And occasionally breaking the rules. Not daily.)